If last week was all about the new, then consider this week all about that new new.

It's the difference between Greece Live and Beyonce's Lemonade. One is an outdated remake, the other is fresher than Yeezy's cleats... fresher than those blueberries you just got at the farmer's market... fresher than the Fresh Prince himself. Seriously though, creative innovation continues to bloom within the world of internet marketing; and let's face it, you could use a refresher.

In this issue of Growth Weekly, you'll discover how Snapchat is copying Facebook (for a change), how content marketing goes hand-in-hand with SEO, and how seemingly every social platform is vying for Snapchat's audience. It's a competitive world out there, and as the titans of social networking continue to duke it out, the rest of us need to be ready to roll with the punches.

Link of the Week

Still searching for the best way to keep your Growth Team organized and task oriented? If so, the new Growth Hackers "Projects" may be the answer.

This new product allows anyone on your team to post, generate, and track ideas which can then be liked and commented on. Its rating feature even measures ideas based on impact, confidence, and ease of testing, allowing for the most relevant ones to be tested first. Use this link to investigate how "Projects" can clear up the chaos from your testing methods. Click the image above and see for yourself.

Facebook

Messaging has become a vital part of our need to instantly share information, and nobody knows this better than Facebook. That’s why earlier this year, Facebook Messenger introduced the “Messenger Bot.”

Hailed as the new thing in eCommerce, “Messenger Bots” failed to immediately set the internet ablaze. But all that could be changing, thanks to Facebook’s new Messenger Update 1.2. As this post by Andrew Hutchinson (@adhutchinson) explains, the new update now allows customers to make payments and complete transactions while remaining inside the Messenger platform. New welcome screens initiate contact between your business’s “Bot” and your customer. It even makes sharing these “Bots” between friends and colleagues completely seamless.

Read on to find out what impact this newly updated Facebook Messenger Bot could have on your business' customer service efforts! 🤖

So the Snapchat siege continues. After weathering Instagram's recent theft of its "Stories" function, it would appear Snapchat's style is being shoplifted yet again.

As this post by Rita El Khoury (@khouryrt) suggests, Facebook is now using its subsidiary, Whatsapp, to mimic the user experience provided by the defiant Venice startup. With new features like front facing flash, image drawing, and stickers, Whatsapp is beginning to look a whole lot like Snapchat. 🤔

Instagram

Remember when Instagram was where you went to avoid the controversies and confrontations of Twitter and Facebook - a time before endless snake emojis and rabid Beliebers? Turns out, so does Instagram, and they want to turn back the clock.

As Ariel Bogle (@arielbogle) explains in this post, Instagram now allows you to block offensive comments and in some cases do away with comments altogether!! You can even customize a list of keywords that you don't want to see. This is BIG. Read on to learn how you can tune out the haters and get back to the good ol’ days.

Snapchat

Snapchat's latest shift toward retargeting looks to be a big one for Growth Hackers. While still considered a risky platform for advertising, it seems that Snapchat is about to make things a little easier for your ads to find your audience.

As Tim Peterson (@petersontee) explains in this post, Snapchat will soon offer 3 new ad targeting options: Snap Audience, Lookalikes, and Snapchat lifestyle categories. Each of them will allow for integration of ad content into user's stories, live stories, and discover channels. Could this be Snapchat paving the way for it's much-speculated IPO?

Read this post to see what these changes could mean not only for Snapchat, but also for you own Snapchat marketing strategy. 👻

Twitter

Love it or hate it, the 140 character limit that has come to define the Twitter platform is coming to an end... kinda.

According to this post by Chris Welsh (@ChrisWelsh) of The Verge, extras like photos, videos, and user polls will no longer count toward your 140 character limit, nor will usernames if they're at the beginning of a reply to someone else's tweet.

While this change may be subtle, the implications seem more suggestive. According to this article, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey thinks, "'This is the most notable change we’ve made in recent times around conversation in particular, and around giving people the full expressiveness of the 140 characters."

When it comes to Twitter, sometimes your grand strategy and careful methodology come second to just figuring out who to follow. Finding the movers and shakers on Twitter can have a major impact on the value of the network that you're cultivating. This post by Aaron Lee (@AskAaronLee) is a great place to start for doing just that.

Excluding the tutorials and metrics of more novice posts, Aaron skips straight to the All-Star List of Twitter marketers. Read this post to build a firm foundation for your own Twitter marketing efforts. Who knows, someday you could be on this list! 🌟

Content Marketing

While easily identified by his trademarked fashion sense, Joe Pulizzi (@JoePulizzi) also reckons himself a “content marketing evangelist,” and his weekly podcast does well to confirm this claim.

This post might appear to be a simple synopsis of one of these podcasts, but the included predictions and handpicked content make it a powerful content marketing resource. Read up for insights from a guy who lives and breathes this stuff, and prepare yourself for the coming changes that are sure to shake up the content marketing industry.

SEO

By now you’re probably aware that the whole marketing game is a constant cost-benefit analysis. Deciding where to invest time, energy, and resources can often mean leaving behind good ideas.

But as Matthew Barby (@MatthewBarby) explains in this post, the choice between great content marketing and highly visible SEO is one you might not have to make. In fact, by strategically using one to enhance the other, both your content and SEO can benefit. Read Matthew’s post to find out how to use SEO statistical analyses to direct your content topics, and forget having to choose between one or the other.

Data Science

Marketing is all about knowing your audience, but sometimes that's harder than it sounds. After all, the internet is a big place. If only there were an infographic that displayed all relevant user habits, boiled down into a single minute of the day...

Turns out Domo has made just that with "Data Never Sleeps 4.0", and the numbers will blow your mind. Check it out to soak up statistics on how many Tweets, Youtube shares, BuzzFeed Views, Google Translations, Tinder swipes, Netflix Streams, Text Messages, and other favorite functions take place every minute of every day!